


turn and trip on my clumsy heart

by sternenrotz



Series: broken hearts hurt but they make us strong (queer horror verse) [17]
Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Fade to Black, Guilt, Late Night Conversations, Porn with Feelings, Trans Female Character, art gallery date, more like feelings with porn, there's sexual content and there is a LOT of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faris takes Dilys on a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn and trip on my clumsy heart

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Clumsy Heart" by the Matches.
> 
> set in early 2008, during the time period that Faris was dating Peaches Geldof. as always, Rhys is a trans girl and her chosen name is Dilys, and Faris still identifies as a bisexual cis man. also, Joe is a trans boy but it doesn't come up much.
> 
> for anyone wondering, the dress Dilys is wearing at the beginning is something similar to this ([x](http://www.asos.com/vero-moda/vero-moda-high-neck-lace-mini-dress/prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=5531840)) and the Shirelles song the two of them dance to is this one ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4oqoRQmJ5s))

Faris only asks Dilys if she wants to come along to the opening night of this exhibition because Peaches cancelled at the last minute, and he hasn't seen her since before the holidays anyway. Really. He already knows he's going to regret this when he picks her up at the pub nearest to the gallery. The artist is this relatively young guy, in his late twenties or early thirties, but he's built up some notoriety in the art world already. Tonight's a flashing-cameras and black-ties event, completely sold out far in advance, of course.

Faris is wearing the one good suit he owns, black with charcoal-grey pinstripes, black tie and black button-up, all black everything. With every step he takes in his wing-tips, he feels foreign, and that's probably what he _looks_ like as well, like an eccentric cartoon character come to life and pressed into a ridiculous suit. Even if he didn't  already feel like he's unwittingly on his way to a party where he'll be the only one in fancy dress, he's sure it would've caught up with him the second he spots Dilys sitting at the bar.

“Hey.”

For that matter, he's also sure his breath stops for a few seconds. When she sets her glass of white wine down and gets up to hug him, his _heart_ stops. She smells like roses, as she always does, some expensive perfume that's  patchouli and sandalwood and above all else, luxurious heavy red roses.

“Hey,” he says back, finally. He still has to look down a little ways at her face even when she's wearing tiny heels. “You look amazing.”

Well, she does. Her hair is silky the way it always is, her eyelashes dark and long, heavy black makeup on her lids. She's wearing this short lacy dress that lets the pale skin on her chest shimmer through, with a silky-looking scarf to cover her shoulders. Black-and-white all over, she reminds Faris of the pieces in the exhibition, Rorschach-inspired black paintings. Just the red pendant around her neck provides a single spot of colour. From what he knows about gemstones, Faris guesses it's jasper, or sardonyx, maybe.

“Thank you,” Dilys says. The subtle sparkle in her eye makeup pops out even more when she gives him her big bright smile. “You do, too.”

Faris dreads that he can feel the blood rushing to his face, but there's nothing he can do to stop it. He's really glad that he's not prone to visibly blushing.

“Thank you,” he says. When Dilys offers her elbow, he links arms with her. “What's your necklace made of?”

“It's carnelian,” Dilys says, and Faris moves to leave the place. “Wait, wait a second.”

She opens her little black purse and digs around inside, and she pulls out a square of folded silky fabric. A kerchief, the exact same shade of red as her necklace, and she leans in to gently place it in the breast pocket of Faris' jacket.

“Here you go. Now we match.”

If it's in any way possible, Faris' face feels even hotter than before. He only barely suppresses the nervous laugh.

“Thank you.”

“Ready to go?”

“Ready.”

*

They're given complimentary drinks at the reception, sweet champagne in skinny flutes with silver stems. Faris is more than content to just hold onto his as they walk through the gallery, but Dilys sips from hers every time they stop in front of a canvas, tiny little sips so as to not smudge her lipstick.

The gallery is packed with men in suits and women in little black dresses, a big uniform mass that Faris has to shoulder through. At least he doesn't stick out the way he worried he would. The both of them blend into the rest of the guests just fine, into the low hum of conversation that resonates off the white marble walls and black-and-white tiled floors. The whole place is one gigantic Rorschach inkblot, so it's all very conceptual.

“I like this one,” Dilys says when they stop by the first piece. “I like the way it's got this arch, it's very uplifting, it reminds me of a bridge. Or of an aeroplane, something like that, it makes me feel like travelling, like I'm going on a journey.”

Faris simply laughs and pets her arm where he’s touching it.

“What d'you think of it?”

“What?”

“What do you see? In the painting?”

Exactly like a Rorschach test, then. Faris says, “I see a road.”

That's how it goes with every other painting, too. Dilys gestures with her champagne flute in one hand and quietly bubbles on about the piece and how it makes her feel. She's not possibly drunk, only had the one glass of wine while she was waiting and then the champagne, so she’s just a bit tipsy and genuinely fascinated. The thing is, she's contagious, too, so Faris can't really help it when they spend ten minutes arguing whether a painting resembles the crown of a tree or the ocean more closely. Maybe it's not the point of the art, but it's fun, and it's easy.

*

When they leave the gallery, it’s been maybe an hour, but the dark has fallen in the meantime. The street is lit up bright with the leftover Christmas lights, and it’s a dry night with clear skies, the air mild. Dilys bends down to slip her heels off.

“Sorry, my feet were killing me,” she says, and she picks them up with one finger in each shoe.

“It's okay,” Faris says back.

He takes his watch from his inner pocket, an antique fob watch he bought at a flea market years ago and barely ever gets to use.

“So, do you… do you want to eat dinner now since we're already dressed up? Or do you want to get takeaway?”

They're already walking down the road, Dilys with her feet basically bare in her thin tights.

Faris adds, “If you want to, I mean.”

“No, no,” Dilys says. “I mean we don't _have_ to, we can just go back to mine. I've still got spaghetti I made for lunch, I can just heat that up, it was really good, so … if you want.”

Faris shrugs. “Is Joe… is he going to mind?” It only sounds like a stupid question after he said it out loud.

“No, I mean… of _course_ he won't mind if you come over for dinner, but he's not home either way.”

That's Faris' second indicator that he's going to end up regretting this.

Dilys continues, “He said he was going over to Josh's for some reason. 'cause they wanted to watch a movie, I think, but that really just means they're going to shag for three hours, so.”

“Oh,” Faris says.

“Yeah, he can stay away for as long as he likes for all I care.” Dilys shrugs in the angriest manner that a skinny girl can possibly shrug in.

Which is _definitely_ not how Faris expected this to go, and that premonition he might regret this raises the hairs on the back of his neck. He's not going to ask just yet.

*

There's a bus that goes past down the road from the gallery right to the bus stop on Dilys' street. They sit on the top deck at the very front, and Dilys adjusts her skirt when she folds her legs one over the other.

She asks, “So. How was your Christmas?”

“I don't celebrate Christmas,” Faris says, very matter-of-fact. Which, he immediately realises, maybe wasn't the best answer to give when trying to get a conversation going, even if it's the truth.

“Oh. Oh, shit, yeah, I just asked without thinking, I'm sorry. I forgot you're Muslim.” Dilys falters and her eyes go wide, and she sets her hand down onto the soft part of Faris' forearm. She asks, “Are you Muslim? I've always just assumed you were.”

Faris' eyes widen as well, mainly at the realisation that this is a conversation he has to have even with people he's known for over two years. Also, at the realisation that this is the first time in over two years that the Christmas question has come up, but Dilys has such a genuine apologetic look in her eyes that he's not going to go into that.

He simply says, “I'm not Muslim.”

“Okay,” Dilys says, and she gives him an equally apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“My dad's family is, but I wasn't raised religiously, so. Like, my mum's family's Christian so we had a tree and presents and a roast dinner every year. But I never went to church or got much of the religious context of it, so…”

“So pretty much an average Christmas,” Dilys points out, and she laughs.

“Yeah, probably,” Faris says. “But now I'm out of the house so I didn't want to go home and pretend I’m straight and monogamous and get told that I should cut my hair, so.”

Dilys giggles, dainty hand covering her mouth. She immediately stops herself with that same hand as if she realised she maybe shouldn't be laughing. “But you could've just spent Christmas with your girl.”

“Yeah, I could've, I guess. But we both agreed we weren't ready for it yet, and again there’s the issue that I didn't want to pretend I’m straight and monogamous in front of _her_ family. S o I just stayed in my flat by myself and ate takeaway, it was… it was really nice, actually,” Faris says. He tries to make his smile look not weird, but that's still something he struggles with. Time to change the topic. “So. What's going on with you and Joe at the moment?”

Dilys lets out a very long sound of exasperation.

“Is it that bad?”

“Pretty much.” Dilys crosses her arms tighter around her middle, and she says, “So. My Christmas this year was pretty much horrible. We were in Southend with my family, like we are every year, and this year my mum asks if she's going to meet Joe's family any time soon, which is… you know Joe pretty much hasn't spoken to his parents since he moved out from his mum’s house, so that's a terrible question to ask, and they start arguing.

“'cause you know Joe's mum really didn't take it well at all when he came out, and now he’s scheduling his chest surgery, so it’s really not the best time to reach out to someone who doesn’t accept it. And he started explaining that to _my_ mum, and she's … my mum's nice, she's a really good person and she's the best mum I could've asked for, ever, and she just suggests that maybe Joe should talk to his family again, especially if he’s going to take such a big step, that maybe they changed their minds, and they get into this _huge_ argument.”

Faris says, “Ouch,” and means it precisely that way.

“Yeah. This was during Christmas dinner, and we were staying until New Year's Eve, so you know it just ruined everyone's mood for almost a whole week. 'cause Joe keeps these massive grudges on people so he spent the whole time being cross, and of course I talked to my mum about it, and it mostly just made her really sad. 'cause she didn't _mean it_ , I mean, she didn't mean to do any harm and she really genuinely believes people can always change for the better and she didn't think Joe would react like that. And of course she tried to apologise, but the thing is she didn't want to back down either, of course, so it didn't really work out. And I'm just kind of in the middle, 'cause, you know.”

Dilys throws her hands out left and right of her in a dramatic shrug, the first time she's gesticulating with her arms since she started speaking. Faris gives her a solemn nod.

“I mean, I don't think it's _right_ for my mum to pressure Joe into reconnecting with his family, like he says she's doing, but I don't think she really is, either, pressuring him.  I just think she doesn't understand how he feels, fully, and she didn't bring it up again so she's not like, _pressing_ the issue. And I mean, I do agree with her.

“'cause it's been over three years so maybe Joe should just try to talk to his mum again, just have one real grown-up conversation and see if she's changed, and I talked to him about it too, so. So he's cross with _me_ , too, 'cause I'm not really on his side, he says, even though I guess I am 'cause I don't think he should reconcile with his mum if he doesn't want to, either. But I'm also on my mum's side 'cause I think he should at least _try_ to want to, you know, and she's my mum and I don't want to see her unhappy, so the whole time I just wanted them to find a compromise without really getting involved.”

Dilys crosses her arms even tighter this time, and Faris doesn't know what to do other than nod once again.

“So it's mainly just been really uncomfortable and weird since we got home 'cause I know he's still cross but I didn't do anything wrong, so.”

She bites her lip, like she's about to start crying the way she's been prone to doing the last couple of months. Faris knows it’s the hormones, but he _really_ hopes she won't.

“Hey,” he says. He tentatively reaches out his arm over her backrest, and Dilys leans into his side. “Hey, it's okay. I'm sorry.”

Dilys doesn't say anything. Faris leans in to check, just in case, but there's no tears running down her cheeks, thankfully. Her fingers helplessly clutch at her bare upper arms where the shawl has slipped down to hang off her elbows.

Finally, she says, “It's just really frustrating for me, sorry. 'cause it's not normally like this, we're not ever cross with each other for more than… an hour, at most. We just sort it out or forget it happened but this time we don't and it's stupid, and I just don't know what to do.” She laughs, but it's a fake laugh, and she says, “Sorry I'm rambling so much.”

Faris is so sure he's going to regret this.

“You don't have to be. Okay?” Faris says, and he asks, “Do you want some advice?”

Good-natured, well-meaning advice.

“Yeah,” Dilys says, flippant the way she is when she's in a bad mood, “Why not.”

“I'm thinking you should talk to your mum about this. Get her on the phone and tell her why you feel Joe feels like he does, and tell her you agree with her basic points, just say what parts you don't agree with. Just talk it out with her and don't make her sad.”

Faris swallows. Dilys fits so well into her space tucked under his arm, and he will regret this evening no matter what he tells her now, he already knows.

“Then you talk to Joe, about what you said to your mum. And you tell him he should consider it, but he doesn't have to. And he can do it at his own pace, just suggest it to him. Don't press it.”

Good-natured, genuine advice.

“Thank you,” Dilys says. “I was thinking I should do that, you know, but it's nice to hear someone else say it, it's just…” She cuts herself off in the middle of the sentence.

Once again, Faris has to check if she's crying. She still isn't.

“Yeah,” he simply says, and he rubs his arm across the bare skin of her shoulder.

It's quiet for a long time, until they've almost reached their stop. Faris really hopes the advice he gave was good advice after all, that it's going to work out when she actually talks to her mum and Joe. It'll be one less thing to feel guilty about if they reconcile, at least. He watches the lights of the windows and the streetlamps outside pass by the bus, a harsh contrast in the darkness now that they’re no longer in the centre of the city. Faris thinks of ink splotches again, a Rorschach test in negative. It’s the anxiety, maybe, that brings out the art student habit to see everything in metaphors. He wishes he had some way to fidget without pulling his arm from Dilys’ shoulders.

“Thank you,” Dilys says, finally. “That you actually listened to me, I mean, it's… I genuinely just wanted to complain, I didn't think you'd be paying attention. I know most people usually just zone out when I talk that much, so.”

This time, Faris has to cut her off, just with a gentle squeeze of her upper arm. “It's okay, I said.”

He wants to say more, that he genuinely enjoys listening to her no matter what she’s talking about, and that he _never_ zones out or at least tries not to. But maybe that’s going too far past comfort between friends. T hen they have to get off the bus, either way.

Faris has never been this anxious in his life.

-

Dilys says she'll just freshen up in the bathroom real quick when she lets him into her flat, so that means Faris is left to his own devices in the living room.

Now that he's left alone with his thoughts, it’s worse, and with his pre-emptive regret and his anxiety. The type of anxiety that physically hurts, it sits heavy in his stomach like he swallowed a brick. Faris sits on the couch next to the record player, in his uncomfortable suit trousers that don't have any loose threads he could pick at. Instead, he picks at where he scuffed his knuckle, until the flaky scab is gone and it's just raw new skin he's poking at.

He can hear Dilys rummaging around in the bathroom through the thin walls of the flat. He's not going to check his watch again, but he feels it's been too long since she left him alone. Maybe he should make up some excuse to leave and get out of this before he does anything he'll truly regret. Say that he got a text from Peaches about an emergency and has to go, as if Dilys wouldn't immediately figure out that he's lying.

He craves a fag, too, but he's not about to break his resolution this soon into the year. Faris pokes his fingernail into where he had the scab one more time for good measure, before he gets up to rifle through the crate of records with the post-it note reading _GIRL GROUPS_ stuck to it.

Dilys keeps her vinyl collection in meticulous order, sorted by genre and then by year of release and alphabetically by artist, a whole shelf in the living room lined with labelled milk crates. She's got some good material. Faris picks out a Shirelles single he's been chasing after for some time now and carefully takes the record from its clear protective cover. The paper sleeve has distressed at the edges with forty years of wear and tear, but when Faris carefully slides the record out, it's in near-mint condition, only a bit of static dust built up on the vinyl.

That's when Dilys' voice comes from the doorway. “Hey.”

“Hey again,” Faris says back without turning his head. He can hear her footsteps on the bare floorboards when she walks into the room.

“Admiring the collection?” Dilys asks, except it's not really a question. Her voice is right next to Faris now, soft and light. Faris isn't sure if hearing it is a comfort or if it only weighs his guts down heavier.

“Yeah, I was just… just wondering. Where'd you buy this?”

“That one…” Dilys pauses for a second before she says, “Yeah, I think I found it at a record fair some years ago, actually.”

“Really.”

“Pure chance, really, I got it for about five quid.”

“Yeah, I was… I've been trying to find a copy on the internet for a while now, but I haven't been lucky.”

Dilys makes a tiny noise that's somewhere between apologetic and amused. It's quiet for a second. Faris puts the record back into its sleeve and cover and back into the crate where he found it.

“So.” He's not hungry in the first place, and with the brick in his belly he feels it'll be physically impossible to eat, but he doesn't know what else to say. So he asks, “Do you want to make spaghetti now?” He figures he should at least look her in the eyes, so he turns his head. “I'll help you if you like.”

“No, no, I'm…” Dilys gives him a big crinkly-eyed smile. “I'm not really hungry, actually, if that's okay.”

“I'm not hungry either, so.”

“Brilliant.” She laughs, low and light.

Faris is going to regret this.

Dilys reaches for the record in the crate once again, and she says, “I'm going to put this on right now.”

She gives Faris yet another big smile, and he really hopes it comes out somewhat genuine when he returns it.

“I've been listening to so many girl groups lately,” she says as she switches on the stereo and places the vinyl on the turntable. “Second puberty emotions, you know?”

That's not a question, either, and Faris simply gives her a quiet laugh.

Dilys changed when she was in the bathroom, he only notices that when the needle hits the record and the first notes sound out through the speakers and soothe his nerves. She looks less ethereal and more casual the way she’s usually dressed, in a velvety turtleneck and tight-fitting skirt. Faris can see she removed most of her makeup, too, when she turns around, only a solid black line drawn around each eye now.

Then she holds out her arms and says, “Hey, come here.”

Any anxiety Faris had that might have melted away is rushing back into his gut with full force.

“Come on. Let's dance.”

“I can't dance,” Faris says back, but he does. Come to her, that is.

It's a stupid bullshit trying-to-get-out-of-this response, but it's also entirely the truth, because he can't. He never learned more than the slow step-fast step-fast step of waltz, which is mainly because he's always been of the opinion that anyone above a certain height looks ridiculous while dancing.

“That's bullshit,” Dilys says back, but she has to crane her neck up that little bit to look into Faris' eyes when she links her fingers with his. “Everyone can dance.”

She gives him a soft, closed-mouthed smile, one that's almost flirtatious, but only almost.

Faris will regret this.

“Here,” she says, and she guides Faris' one hand towards her hip. “Put this hand on my waist.”

Faris complies. Dilys places her hand on Faris' shoulder, warm even through the layers of his suit jacket and dress shirt. She moves in closer, so she _really_ has to crane her neck.

“Here we go.”

“Yeah, I knew that much about how to waltz,” Faris says, but Dilys' smile is so stupidly contagious he can't help but let a dry laugh slip into it. “I don't think we can waltz to this.”

“We don't have to _waltz_ , you know.” She puts her cheek against Faris' shoulder, just gently, and begins to hum the bars of the song. “Let's just sway.”

The song on the 7” is a slow one, so slow the only thing to do to it _is_ sway. That's exactly what they do. They turn slowly in the space between the vinyl shelves and the sofa, and Dilys whispers along with the lyrics, only barely audible.

It's awkward, with Dilys barefoot in her tights and Faris in his stupid fancy shoes that add another inch or so to their height difference, awkward but also wonderful. Faris wants to stay in this moment forever, before it's over and he'll inevitably do something he'll regret.

“There we go, I told you. It's easy.”

Faris simply hums into the top of her hair.

“Are you having fun?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Faris removes his hand from her grip and places it on the small of Dilys' back, where it curves in. He tightens his hold, and he knows it should be stupid to feel anxious about something as simple as this. Her skin is radiating so much warmth through the soft material of her jumper, and he knows she's not thinking twice about any of this. It only helps a little bit.

The song ends soon enough, and Faris doesn't want it to just yet. He hums along with the last few bars, until it's quiet around them once again. Their bodies continue to sway for a little bit.

Dilys has to crane her neck up once again when she says, right into Faris' ear, “I actually really want to sleep with you tonight.”

Faris knows, absolutely and definitely, that he's going to regret tonight. He tries his best to not lock up with Dilys' hands right on him. To his surprise, he doesn't.

“You sure?”

He knows the rule: if the girl's drunk, she can't properly consent with her inhibitions lowered by the booze, it's taking advantage. It's, technically speaking, rape. He's also pretty sure Dilys _isn't drunk_ , though, from the way that she talks and moves. She's only had two glasses. They've had sex plenty of times with everyone involved far drunker than _two glasses_ , and…

Faris is running out of reasons why he can't do this.

Dilys hums. Her hands caress Faris' shoulder and the small of his back, so frail and yet so _present_ Faris can't help but feel helpless underneath it.

“I do love a man in a suit.”

Faris tries to think about the story of the snake and the apple, or about that one Oscar Wilde quote. Then Dilys' hand moves down to his bum over his trousers, and he stops trying to think in metaphors. All he knows is this is the exact reason he's never let himself have sex with just Dilys before, the temptation weighed up against the guilt he knows he'll feel afterwards.

Faris is _fucked_ .

“And I've not had sex since… since, you know.”

_Since the argument_ .

The part of Faris' brain that really wants him to regret this reminds him, Joe and Dilys have an open relationship to begin with. They're both free to sleep around with whoever they want. Joe's probably having sex with Josh at this very moment, so it's not that Dilys would be cheating. Peaches knows all about the relationship they’ve got as a band, so it’s not that _he_ would be cheating, either. Faris thinks of  it as a cartoonish little devil that sits on his shoulders, but it's making some compelling arguments.

Faris turns his head to actually look at Dilys once again. The only light in the living room is the fairy lights strung across the walls, and what little is coming in from outside, so her face has this alien beauty to it once again. The wetness in her eyes sparkles along with what's left of the glitter on her lids, sharp cheekbones softened by the dim light.

“Yeah,” he says, and he feels her warmth underneath his hands when he strokes along her back. “I think I could help you out with that.”

He laughs, short and nervous, and he leans down for a slow kiss. Their mouths barely move, just resting open against each other. It's sealed.

“Come. Let's go to my bedroom.”

*

When Dilys is undoing his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, Faris decides to stop listening to his brain for good. He's got his hand on her hips underneath her jumper, the soft skin where her hip bones are pronounced. When she strips that stupid dress shirt off his shoulders and lets it crumple on the floor, Faris figures he should do the same.

“Can I?”

“Come on.”

He’s careful when he peels the jumper off, the velvet clingy where it fits tightly to Dilys’ torso, and careful to not tousle her hair when he pulls it up over her head. They’re still standing in the space in front of the big bed, so the fabric simply falls to the floor when Faris returns his hands to the gentle dip of her waist. It’s a perfect fit. Her skin prickles with goosebumps in the bare air, and Faris leans in to kiss her again.

Dilys has incredibly soft lips, smooth in contrast to how chapped Faris’ lips have worn with the cold, and her mouth is warm and wet. Kissing her’s different from any other girl Faris has ever kissed, different in that he’s not uncomfortably snogging her in the dark-and-harsh-lights of some club, and in that she’s got her hands tangled in his hair, short fingernails barely scraping his scalp. She keeps him close like this, occasionally tugs on the strands as she licks out into his mouth, like she knows exactly what she wants from this and she’ll take it. It’s _also_ different in that it sends hot shivers running up Faris’ back, fires up a flame burning in his belly.

Faris could stay like this forever, probably, or at least for the rest of the evening. Still, he slides his hands further upwards, soothes the gooseflesh underneath his warm touch, before he gets to her breasts. Then, he realises.

“You’re…” he starts, not quite sure how to continue.

“Not stuffing my bra,” Dilys continues. “I’m an A cup now. I measured.” She giggles, just for a short second.

Faris moves his hands to properly cup them, feels how soft they are even through the flimsy material. He says the only thing on his mind at that moment that doesn’t seem completely asinine, “You’re amazing.”

Dilys hums. She leans up for another kiss. When Faris experimentally squeezes her breasts, just lightly, her breath hitches. A gentle gasp escapes into the space between their mouths, tethering on the line between pain and pleasure.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Dilys says back. “My boobs are super sensitive right now, sorry.”

“Does it feel good for you?”

“Yeah, it does.” She smiles and runs her fingers along Faris’ scalp once again, and she says, “Just needs some getting used to.”

“Sorry.”

Faris slides his hands back down to Dilys’ waist, the back of her skirt where the zip is. He’s much more eager to get her naked with that knowledge.

“D’you want me to take this off, too?”

“Yes, please.”

She kisses him again when he fumbles with the zip, but then it’s down, finally. He eases the skirt off her hips, so she can simply step out of it once it falls to the floor. Dilys uses her grip on him to push him backwards, so he’s got no choice but to sit down on the edge of the bed, already overwhelmed before she’s crawling into his lap.

The scent of that rose perfume is even more intoxicating when she’s this close, her body even warmer when she sits right on Faris’ half-hard cock. His hands go to her breasts, then to her back and bum, then the bare strip of skin between her knickers and her thigh-high stockings that turned out to not be tights at all like he assumed. Once again, they kiss. The moment is surreal, or maybe hyperrealistic, something come to life that Faris only ever imagined in vague fantasies or seen in bad movies. The lead gives into temptation and bites the apple. He lets himself be seduced by the girl who has a boyfriend, but Faris doesn’t remember that scenario ever seeming so _right_ in the movies.

Dilys wraps one skinny arm around his neck to keep him close when she starts to circle her hips, get him from half-hard to fully-hard underneath her. She directs Faris’ face down to her throat when they finally pull apart, not-so-subtly instructs him to kiss her neck where he knows she’s ticklish. Faris complies, of course he does. Hearing the breathy little noises she makes is completely worth it, responsive as she is, and even more so when he lets his hands wander again and squeezes her bum through her knickers.

“Your dick is so big,” Dilys finally breathes when Faris’ lips have moved down to her collarbones, the sensitive skin where they dip in.

“Yeah?”

“Can’t wait to have you inside me.”

If it’s possible, Faris can feel the same amount of blood he had rushing to his cock come up into his face now. His cheeks feel uncomfortably hot under the skin, dick squashed in his pants and suit trousers and the cramped space between their bodies.

He says, “Wait a second.”

He slings his arms tightly around Dilys, one at her waist and one just below her bum so he can lift her up when he pushes himself off the mattress, the way he does with smaller girls to impress them. She’s heavier than he expected, much heavier than she felt in his lap, but she giggles and wraps her arms and legs around his back so he can safely lay her down on the sheets.

“Are you gonna ravish me now?” she asks, still giggling.

Faris has to lean in and kiss her once again. “Ravishing’s not really my style.”

He has to move off the bed once more to undo his belt and fly and step out of his trousers, and he can tell Dilys is watching him, so he slides his briefs down while he’s at it.

“Come back here,” Dilys insists, eyes transfixed to his bare skin. Faris does.

For once, he doesn’t feel uncomfortably exposed being naked in front of someone else, even with his gangly limbs and generally weird proportions and the old cuts on his thigh. What he does feel is wanted, knowing Dilys feels the same way about him right now as he feels about her, he feels desired and slightly superhuman.

He takes it all in when he moves back onto the mattress, into the space between her spread legs, the contrast the black lace makes against her milky smooth skin. It's almost the same shade of white as the sheets in the soft light, and Faris thinks of Rorschach tests again. He watches how the fine hairs on Dilys’ skin prick up when he grazes one hand over her ribcage and up to her breast.

“You’re beautiful,” he says when they’re face to face again, before he moves in for another kiss, because she _is_ and he feels he should tell her. “You always are.”

“Thank you,” Dilys whispers. Her voice is too delicate in the quiet room and in contrast with the gravel of Faris’ own voice, smoky and sweet and sexual, and he wants to hear more of that.

Faris lets his hands wander up to her breasts once again, thumbs slipping past the cups of her bra to press into the soft flesh.

“Can I?” he asks.

Dilys hums out a sound of pleasure, which Faris takes as a _yes_. “Just be… just be tender.”

He is when he pushes the flimsy lace down far enough to get both of her breasts out, nipples pink and already perking up. Faris carefully rubs over one with his thumb when he leans in to kiss her neck, and he gets the most wonderful sharp breath for it.

“Is this good?”

“Yeah, it’s…”

Dilys ruts up against his cock when he continues, with her hands in his hair and her leg wrapped around his back for leverage. There’s so much of her, so much pale flesh and soft skin Faris wants to touch. He’s going to map it all with his mouth.

Faris eases the straps off her shoulders and the actual bra further down her torso when he starts to kiss a trail down to her breasts, not going to bother with the clasps. When he first touches his mouth to her nipple, he relishes the sound she lets out.

“You’re so,” Faris breathes out when he lets go. He doesn’t know how to continue that sentence, _sexy, gorgeous, breathtaking, loud, loud, loud_. He needs her to be louder more than he needs anything else.

“I know,” she says back, and she scratches at his scalp like she would to reward an obedient dog. “Keep doing that,” she instructs, as if he needed the encouragement to continue in the first place.

Faris wants to service her for the rest of his life, probably. His hands slide deeper down to her waistband when he keeps mouthing over her chest, thumbs slipping past the elastic. She’s slowly getting hard underneath the lacy fabric. Faris can feel it against how sensitive his own cock is.

“Can I?” he asks, and he has to force himself to pull off her chest even when his lips are tingling and his breath is short. “Take your knickers off?”

“Come on.”

Dilys lifts her hips and folds her legs to her chest to help him get her undressed all the way, so she’s left only in her thigh highs. Faris strokes over the lace detail at the top of each sock when he settles back on top of her, when she hooks her legs around his back once again.

“I like your thigh highs,” he says after they kiss once again.

“Thank you,” Dilys says back. “Are you gonna fuck me in my stockings?”

They’re so close like this, bodies pressed together so Faris can feel _every_ part of Dilys, her soft little breasts sticky with spit and the scratchy lace of her bra where it’s hanging loosely around her middle. Her cock, too, smooth and warm. His own cock is already too hard to begin with, but as soon as she says that, he feels that he’s going to come as soon as he does as little as wrap his hand around it, let alone use it to fuck her.

“Later,” he whispers back instead, and he slides one hand up to squeeze her bum. “I want to eat you out right now.”

Dilys giggles, a nervous, high-pitched giggle that’s all for the purpose of relieving the tension. Faris has to kiss her to shut her up. Like this, he can do anything.

*

That feeling of being superhuman Faris had only wears off long after they’re finished.

He waits until his cock is all the way soft before he pulls out, and he leans in to kiss her one more time, her lips swollen and bruised underneath his.

“So,” he asks, “Was it good for you?”

Dilys lets out a giggle once again, still giddy off the orgasm. Her face glows with an incredible pink, skin shimmering with sweat and eyes sparkling with wetness. It’s the most beautiful Faris has ever seen her, probably.

“Thank you,” she says, and she pets Faris’ hair with the hand she’s still got there. “You were amazing.”

“I’m glad.”

He aches all over when he picks himself up to kneel, muscles exhausted now that the adrenaline of sex has worn off. His bones crack when he climbs off the bed.

“Where’re you going?”

“Just gonna clean up. And I need some water.”

Faris bends down to pick his clothes up off the floor and fold them properly before he goes. He watches Dilys from the corner of his eye as she nestles into the sheets and pulls the duvet up over her body.

“Come back to bed after. Yeah?”

Her hair’s tousled the way it normally never looks after sex, makeup smudged, but she’s got a look on her face like she’s really, truly sated. Faris really wants to make it much worse, but he pulls his briefs back on, at least for now. He gets two bottles of water from the kitchen, a wet flannel from the bathroom to wipe the worst of the sweat and lube off his skin before he crawls back into bed.

“Here,” he says when he passes the flannel over to Dilys and settles in under the duvet. “If you want to clean yourself off.”

“Thank you.”

“D’you want some water?”

“No, it’s… I’m good, thanks.”

Dilys stretches to place the flannel on the far edge of the bed, the exposed strip of wood between the mattress and the wall. She turns her back to Faris.

“I’m just really tired now.”

“Okay.”

Faris isn’t sure what to do, but he doesn’t want to go back to his empty flat just yet. He shifts on the mattress to lie on his side behind her, not quite a spoon but close enough that he can lay his hand onto where her ribcage is heaving with breath.

“Are you staying here tonight?”

“Yeah. If I’m allowed to.”

Dilys buries her head deeper in her pillow, so her voice comes out muffled when she says, “Joe’s not going to mind. If he comes home at all.”

“Okay.”

“Come here. I want to cuddle.”

Faris has never liked being the big spoon. Still, he moves in to properly wrap his arms around Dilys’ waist, head on her shoulder. Dilys hums in satisfaction. Just until she falls asleep, he says to himself. Still, inhaling the perfume that clings to her, he feels sated, safe in the heat that radiates off her body. He kisses the back of her neck and listens to her breathing, soft and even.

Only after her breath has become even more even, after her body has relaxed in Faris’ grip, reality creeps in once again. It’s not a gradual thing at all this time around; Faris gently blows air onto her neck to make sure she’s asleep before he disentangles himself. Just like that, the rational part of him comes rushing back and the regret hits him in the belly with the force of the proverbial brick.

He sits up on the edge of the bed and reaches for his bottle of water that he left on the night table, cold enough in his throat to make him shudder, and the shock only emphasises the guilt even more. What he truly needs is something much stronger than water, and also, what seemed like just a bit of sweat earlier has dried to become unbearably itchy on his chest and back. He picks himself up and drags himself to the bathroom.

Faris hates the old idea that taking a shower will make him feel better, whether it’s a hangover or a head cold or the realisation that he did what he swore to himself he wouldn’t do and slept with a girl he’s been infatuated with for too long who happens to have a boyfriend. Still, he takes his time, really washes his hair and conditions it, too. He uses Dilys’ expensive face scrub while he’s at it, just because. Under the spray of hot water, the scratch marks that Dilys left on his back sting, as if he needed a physical reminder of what he did. When he rinses the conditioner from his hair, he finds a bruise on his neck that he knows he won’t be able to cover up. He stays in the shower for as long as he can, until the skin of his fingers has worn wrinkled and the water is running cold.

After he towel-dries his hair and wraps himself in Joe’s fluffy dressing gown, Faris wanders around the flat aimlessly. He makes himself a cup of tea in the kitchen and then spends a while sitting at the table in the dining area, on the sofa in the living room. For a bit, he considers putting on a record or ordering in delivery on his mobile, since he fully well knows he can’t leave after telling Dilys he’d spend the night. But then, he doesn’t want to wake her up either, so instead, he gives in to the cravings and takes two fags from the packet on the coffee table.

The night outside feels much crisper than he expected when he steps out onto the balcony, with his bare feet and damp hair and the dressing gown that only goes down to his knees. Faris leans against the railing and lights up. He shuts his eyes and lets the freezing air soak into his skin down to his bones. Stars explode and flash behind his eyelids, the vivid patterns that normally come from applying pressure, but brought about by the cold instead, and it’s another fucked up Rorschach inkblot. Faris is so tired of metaphors and parallels when all he’s got is raw regret. He smokes his two fags and shuts the balcony door behind him, and he crawls back into the bed next to Dilys.

She doesn’t stir even the slightest bit. Of course she doesn’t, a heavy sleeper as she is, and Faris loosely slings one arm around her waist again. Just in case she wakes up before him, or in the middle of the night for some reason. Her skin is scorching hot against his hand, even more so than it was before. Faris is half worried the cold might scare her up, but she only makes a mumbling noise and shifts in the sheets ever so slightly, and she carries on sleeping.

Maybe that’s what Faris should do, too. Sleep. He buries his face deeper into the pillow, tries to ignore Dilys’ scent clinging to the material, and he waits. But sleep won’t come.

Outside on the other side of the street, through the gaps in the blinds, the lights are turning off. People are going to bed and the world is going dark. Faris wonders what time it is. He turn onto his back so he won’t have to see it anymore.

The door of the flat opens when Faris isn’t sure anymore how much time passed or how late it is. Joe comes into the bedroom with his hair wet and his eyeliner smudged, and he only takes one look at Faris.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Faris says back. His voice sounds foreign to even his own ears.

He watches as Joe strips down to his pants and pulls on a big t-shirt from the wardrobe.

“D’you want me to move?” he asks when Joe crawls into bed as well.

“It’s fine. There’s enough space.”

“Okay.”

The bed’s big enough that Joe can settle in under the duvet and grab a pillow for himself without any part of his body touching Faris’. That’s about the only way this situation could’ve been worse.

Faris expects the deadly silence from before to settle back in.

But then Joe asks, “Did you two have fun?”

“I guess we did.”

“That’s great,” Joe says. It comes out sounding about as much like hollow small talk as it could possibly sound.

Faris feels he shouldn’t let the conversation die, not if it means he’ll have to lie awake and restless between the two of them. “Did you? Have fun with Josh?”

Joe makes a sound of affirmation. “Tom came over, too.”

Faris doesn’t know what to say.

“You ever got head while someone else was eating your ass at the same time?”

“Don’t think I ever did.”

“Well,” Joe says, “it’s amazing.”

“That’s nice, Joe,” Faris says back with the exact same tone of hollow small talk.

For a second, it’s quiet, and Faris turns onto his side away from Joe. Dilys is still sound asleep, of course she is. Faris puts his hand back where he took it from her ribcage.

“I know you’re in love with my girlfriend, you know?”

Faris isn’t sure if the question was meant to be rhetorical or not. What he feels is not so much regret now as it’s a numb, heavy type of shame.

“You always look at her like you want to eat her, and you’re always staring when she’s with me. It’s obvious.”

Joe is nothing but a tiny voice in the dark, a voice that belongs to a skinny five-foot-nine kid with a baby face. Faris objectively knows that. He has, between bad dreams and obsessive thoughts, figured out that of everyone in the band, Joe would be the easiest to kill, if he was put into a situation where that’s necessary. He knows that, but he also knows that Joe _knows_. That’s terrifying on a level where he can’t move a muscle.

Instead, he asks, “Does she… does Dilys know, too?”

“I don’t think she does,” Joe’s voice says. “She’s not that perceptive with this stuff. I’m not saying she’s stupid, ‘cause she’s not, but she thinks everyone is in love with her either way.” And he says, “I mean, I guess it’s true. But I haven’t told her about it and she hasn’t brought it up.”

Faris says, “Okay,” because it’s the only thing he can think of. He pulls his hand from Dilys’ body.

“Do you wish she knew?”

“What?”

“I mean what I said,” Joe’s voice says. “You probably do, right? You want her to find out how you feel and discover that she felt the same way the whole time so you can run off together.”

Faris starts to say, “I don’t,” but he doesn’t get any further than that because Joe cuts him off again.

“I don’t care,” Joe says. “I’m not mad that you had sex with her tonight or anything, either. But you need to get over it.”

“I know.”

Faris stares at the lump Dilys makes under the sheets, and the way her hair falls onto the pillowcase. He rolls onto his back once again.

“I actually don’t want her to find out, ever. So I tried to repress it as good as I could, ‘cause I didn’t… It would just ruin the whole band relationship. And obviously I tried to get over it, too, but it’s hard, you know. You can’t just stop feeling something because you no longer want to feel it. It doesn’t work like that.”

He turns his head to actually look Joe in the face, for the first time tonight. Joe’s just a kid, really, even more so with the darkness turning his eyes almost all black with how wide his pupils are blown.

“I’m sorry.” Joe says it in the most genuine way possibly.

Faris hates him _so much_.

“I never even let myself have sex with her or just spend time with her by ourselves until tonight. I already regret that. I feel like I ruined it for myself.” The words feel heavy on Faris’ tongue and even heavier when they’re hanging in the empty air.

“What d’you mean?”

“You know, ‘cause now I got a glimpse of what it’d be like, being with her. And now I’m just scared I’m going to want more and I’m actually going to make it weird for her.”

“You know it’s not going to happen.”

“I know.”

“‘cause she loves me.”

Faris _knows_. He wants to punch Joe in the face just for that.

“And you get into one argument with her mum and drag her into it and then you don’t talk it out with her for almost two weeks.” He didn’t mean for _that_ to come out, however.

“Yeah, I know,” Joe says, brow furrowed in the dim light. “She told you about that.”

“She did.”

Joe huffs. “Yeah, that was shitty of me to do.” His eyes wander away from Faris’ gaze, up to the ceiling, and he says, “But I’m over it now. I thought about it and I blew off some steam and I’m going to apologise tomorrow. ‘cause I want to talk it out.”

For a second, it’s quiet, and Faris can’t tell if it’s a truly hostile silence or merely a regular awkward silence.

“That’s good,” he finally says. “Very good.”

“I really do love her, you know. ‘cause she’s my best friend and she helped me be who I am now, and not because I became infatuated with her after I met her twice.”

That stings.

“When did you figure it out?”

“A really long time ago. At least two years.”

“Two years,” Faris repeats, and it’s not just guilt that lies heavy in his stomach. Now there’s shame, too, after that last comment and especially now that he’s been brought to realise how painfully obvious his crush on Dilys must have been.

“It’s really easy to narrow down the reason when a guy you never met before hates you just because.”

“I don’t hate you, Joe,” Faris says.

“Okay.” Joe turns to look at him once again, and he says, “I don’t hate you either, so you know.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m not going to tell her, ‘cause I’m not a bad person.” He furrows his brow again, that ridiculous disgruntled expression he has, and says, “but you have to move on.”

“I know,” Faris says once again. It sounds hollow and metallic, like talking into the spinning blades of a fan.

“I’m going to sleep now,” Joe says.

He moves so his back is turned as well and pulls the duvet snugly around himself. Like that, the conversation’s cut short. The silence creeps in once again, and Faris is left alone with the guilt and shame and regret weighing heavy in his guts. Dilys breathes quietly, and Joe softly snores in time with her rhythm.

Faris is so, so fucked.


End file.
